Hi dungbeetle:
I've been out all day and just got back so here is the experience. It was related on the "Experiences from the 2002 Yearbook...venting" thread.
It was a prime example of the all the head games the WTS played with the lowly rank and file in relating the extent many went to to get to assemblies during the years before 1975, emphasing in a subtle way how, in this case, there was no need for retirement funds.
This experience is of a man in 1971 with 11 children who gave up his retirement fund, (after years of paying into it), to finance his family to attend an assembly, because he reasoned "that integrity and faith in Jehovah will get one through the coming tribulation whether one has money in a fund or not, he resolved to invest his fund toward guaranteeing his family’s future spiritual survival".
It was just another examply of how the WTS weaved the thought of how close the end was. Now I wonder what this man is doing 30 years later when he no doubt if still living, is of retirement age.
Just as an added thought too...I mentioned in the other thread, someone told me that just this past weekend, an elder said in his talk, that the hype of the end coming by 1975 was {b]all the fault of the publishers, not the WTS. The WTS then had to step in and straighten the error of the r&f out after that.
Here is the experience from the 1971 Yearbook.
*** yb71 134-5 Country Reports (Part One) ***
WESTERN SAMOA Population: 140,000
Peak Publishers: 92 Ratio: 1 to 1,522
A brother with a family of eleven, including an adopted daughter and pioneer living with them, wanted to get all of them overseas to the international assembly in Fiji. Only one source of finance was available. His employers kept a superannuation fund to be withdrawn on retirement or in very exceptional circumstances. Having worked there many years, the brother figured he would have enough in it to get the family to the assembly. Reasoning that integrity and faith in Jehovah will get one through the coming tribulation whether one has money in a fund or not, he resolved to invest his fund toward guaranteeing his family’s future spiritual survival.
It was not until the week of travel to the assembly that he was able to contact his managing director. Naturally, his director felt as many would. He wondered why a family man would wish to withdraw his only security against the future and chance leaving nothing for them if something happened to him. The brother explained the importance to him and his family as Jehovah’s worshipers of attending the assembly and that this was the only way for them to get to Fiji. His being a respected and trusted employee, his director favorably granted the request and made an unprecedented exception in letting him withdraw his superannuation fund in full. Happy and thankful to Jehovah for this blessing, he went the following day and paid his family’s ship fares to Fiji. The family then joyfully prepared to leave.
Later that week, however, the brother was informed that the ship was strike-bound in another country and would not be sailing as expected. The only other way out of the country, so as to be at the assembly in time, was by air at greater expense. Suffice it to say that the brother and his family enjoyed the assembly, with no regrets. They know that only spiritual steadfastness, faith and obedience to Jehovah will preserve them, in the future and not transient material possessions.
This is just one example among the many others that the WTS used to slyly hint of the nearness of the end...like the ones of those who sold their homes to pioneer, or who gave up a good-paying job to help where the need is greater for the "short remaining time", or the young ones who went pioneering instead of going to university etc. etc. etc.
Had Enough
"Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."...Margaret Mead[/b]
